As is generally well known in the railway industry, when railway cars are taken out of a train and parked at a siding or yard, the hand brake or parking brake on at least some of these cars are applied as a precaution against unwanted or unexpected movement of the cars. A typical railway car hand brake system normally consists of an apparatus for manually applying and biasing one or more brake shoes against the tread of one or more wheels of the railway car by either turning a hand wheel or pumping a ratchet handle on a hand brake mechanism attached to the railway car.
As illustrated in FIG. 2, in truck mounted braking systems, the hand brake mechanism is usually either a cast or stamped metal gear housing usually attached to an outside end wall of the railway car and having a rotatable chain drum therein which can be rotated by turning the hand wheel to wind a brake chain onto the chain drum. The other end of the brake chain normally extends through the bottom of the gear housing and is interconnected with cable or other linkage, such as a hand brake lever, to the brake beam which carries the brake shoes such that winding of the brake chain onto the chain drum will apply tension to the brake chain and linkage as necessary to draw the interconnected brake shoes against the tread surfaces of adjacent railway car wheels and, accordingly, apply the hand brake as intended.
A disadvantage of this prior art type hand brake arrangement is that operation of the handwheel requires exerting a considerable amount of physical force from an awkward position. This, in turn, makes the hand brake difficult to apply and could present a possible injury hazard.